Chapter 36

San Antonio Drive doesn't fit its name. Instead of the small residential street you think of when you hear the word "drive," it's four lanes each way, with a dirt median in between wide enough for another two lanes or perhaps another four. There is a double file of large power line towers in the median – not the big towering spidery metal ones, but more like telephone poles stuck together. They're still big enough, though. It's a weird street – west of I-25 it's Ellison Street, and east of Wyoming it becomes Harper Road, and has a normal layout on either side of the San Antonio stretch.

I came roaring up San Antonio from the west, having come up I-25, and saw the usual clot of police vehicles at the intersection with Louisiana. The median that runs down San Antonio is so wide that streets which cross it have lights not only at the northern and southern edges, but at the edges of the median too. It's a very odd way of building things, but it came in handy – most of the cop cars had actually driven off of the pavement onto the dirt, and there wasn't much traffic blockage.

By now the officers who customarily responded to the murderer's dumps knew the Blazer, and a uniform waved us up onto the median. Cecelia and I got out, and found the same sort of scene we'd seen before. They'd done minimal work around the body and indeed on the median, leaving things almost pristine for me to try to track, but aside from one partial footprint, I came up with nothing. Though there's a sidewalk or plenty room on the dirt on both sides of the road, and one of the city's hiking and biking trails south of it, people in Albuquerque rarely cross streets at the crosswalk, and so there was plenty of traffic. Whether all the people who'd left tracks just hadn't seen the body, or had just ignored it, or the perp had just managed not to leave much sign I couldn't tell.

When I was done with my efforts, I stood by Lt. Stubblefield and Cecelia and watched the ME go to work while the forensics people swarmed around. I looked around again, this time thinking of how the site related to the others. "I think he's made another mistake," I said.

"How so?" Cecelia asked me.

"Until now, the dump sites were pretty much random. They've been all over the place. Now he's dumped two bodies within easy walking distance of each other. You don't know this area," I told her, "but I walked all over up here when I lived on Montgomery, and though you can't see it from here the last dump site is just down there. You can see the light at the freeway from here, and that open area is just south of there."

"And your conclusion from this?" Cecelia asked.

"Well, I'm not sure it's firm enough to be a conclusion, but I think he's losing control. He's been scattering his bodies, but I think he's starting to foul his own nest."

"You mean he lives in this area?"

"I think that he may live in this general area. It's only a possibility. But it's something to work with. I bet the lieutenant already was thinking the same thing, and I bet I know what he's gonna do."

"And what, pray tell, are you going to do, Lieutenant?"

Stubblefield grinned, though the rest of his face wasn't particularly humorous. "Let the professor tell it."

Cecelia turned to me, so I told her. "He's gonna send an army out to interview people within a mile or two of this site – and it'll take an army too, 'cause there's a ton of people who live or work around here. An' he's gonna have MVD pull the registrations of all dark SUVs with addresses in this area, and look real close at those people. He's also gonna have MVD get him the drivers license pictures of the owners of those SUVs. MVD ain't a-gonna like it, but it's necessary."

Stubblefield nodded. "That's exactly what I'm going to do. That's police work, Mrs. Carpenter – dull, plodding, boring, time consuming, and expensive." He looked hard at her. "If you want to be an investigator, you'd better get used to this sort of thing."

Cecelia said quietly, "I have already had some small experience of canvassing in the course of a case; I do not doubt your position."

"My position is in the middle of a real—" Stubblefield broke off, and I could guess at what he had probably been about to say. I know some raw language, though I haven't used it in years, and two or three possibilities came to mind.

"Your position, sir, is a most difficult one, and I do not envy you. As difficult as my husband and I are finding this inquiry, we are merely legionaries; you are the centurion and upon your head shall fall any opprobrium which may accrue to the investigation. And whatever the result shall be at the end, I have found you to be a professional police officer; however acrimonious our initial contact may have been, I consider it a privilege to serve with you in this endeavor."

Stubblefield looked at her. "That's a handsome compliment, Mrs. Carpenter, and I appreciate it. And I appreciate the work you've done. You and your husband have been able to talk more effectively with the potential victims than my officers could have, and you've been valuable assets." He looked back at the body. "And I halfway hope you find him before we do."

I glanced at Cecelia, and her expression told me that she knew what I knew. Stubblefield was thinking that since she and I weren't cops – at least not anymore – if the perp "resisted arrest" we could get away with "defending ourselves" more vigorously than any cop could. I shook my head very slightly, telling Cecelia – and hoping she understood me – that though we had no plans to become vigilantes, we wouldn't make an issue of it right then.

She must have either gotten my drift, or had the same thought independently, for she remained silent. We all were silent, except for the necessary comments back and forth between the ME and his assistant, the EMTs who were standing by to transport the body, and the crime scene techs who were doing their thing. Cops make very gruesome, black jokes at crime scenes as a way to defend themselves against the horrors of their job, but the body count and the sheer violence of the murders had pushed us beyond the point where we could make jokes anymore. All we could do was keep on trying to find the evil creature who was doing this to innocent people, and hope that the court would bury him so deep in prison that even the rats wouldn't be able to find him.